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Clearwire said today that it would expand its WiMAX network to Cincinnati, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Miami, Pittsburgh, Salt Lake City and St. Louis this year. Clearwire is in a race to sign up mobile broadband subscribers before the cellular operators launch their own 4G networks. Read more »

It’s hard to grow in a saturated market, but despite the 89 percent cell phone penetration the U.S. has, AT&T managed to pull out some impressive revenue growth, thanks to consolidation. But for U.S. carriers future growth will require new business models and applications. Read more »

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I spent the last few weeks testing a dual mode WiMAX modem from Sprint. The verdict: It’s not strong enough to be a wireline replacement, but if I didn’t have a contract on Verizon I’d ditch my MiFi and use WiMAX as my primary data connection. Read more »

As part of a recently created pro-consumer task force at the Federal Communications Commission, the agency is sending out letters asking the top four wireless carriers and Google about their early termination fees. Read more »

Cox, the nation’s third-largest cable company, today said it had successfully delivered a voice call and high-definition video streaming over a fourth-generation Long Term Evolution network, but the trial raises more questions than it answers about the cable provider’s 4G wireless plans. Read more »

Checking out a new comparison chart on wireless pricing, I realized that we have a two-tiered level of competition when it comes to mobile plans (three if we count prepaid), and that voice has been utterly commoditized, which means data plans are going to stay pricey. Read more »

The ThinkPad brand has long been associated with top-notch business-class notebooks. The famous black notebooks have appeared in conference rooms the world over, and the ThinkPad brand has come to mean fine quality business notebooks. The folks at Lenovo look to bring the ThinkPad into the […] Read more »

Carriers are rapidly losing their power in today’s mobile ecosystem. To stay relevant they will have to become more agile, learn to share and use their cash to move ahead rather than play a waiting game hoping the Googles and Apples of the world will fail. Read more »

Clearwire has opened retail stores in 10 U.S. cities as part of pushing its Clear WiMAX service to the masses. However, given how few WiMax-capable devices there are right now, the retail environment must seem pretty empty. Read more »

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Sprint held a happy hour last night to show off the WiMAX launch in here Austin, Texas, so I wandered over for some BBQ and broadband. I want to love WiMAX, but I can’t get excited about the promise of upload speeds of some 400 kilobits […] Read more »

[qi:gigaom_icon_WiMax] Sprint announced WiMAX service today in San Antonio and my hometown of Austin, Texas, so this is just to tell y’all I’m playing with a modem and will be letting folks know how it all works, once I activate the darn thing. Currently Sprint doesn’t […] Read more »

Clearwire, as expected, said today that it’s managed to cajole $1.56 billion out of most of its previous investors to continue its buildout of the Clear WiMAX network. However, those doubling down on WiMAX (see chart) as the ideal fourth-generation wireless technology are likely throwing good […] Read more »

The floundering economy hasn’t kept consumers from spending on mobile data, according to the latest quarterly report on the wireless industry from Chetan Sharma, one of our GigaOM Pro analysts. U.S. data service revenues grew 27 percent year-over-year in the third quarter, Sharma reported, with Verizon […] Read more »

Sprint today joins the ranks of direct netbook sales from a wireless carrier. Starting in the Minneapolis Twin Cities area, Sprint stores offer the Dell Inspiron Mini 10 with integrated wireless broadband. As with any subsidized wireless device, customers need to commit to a two-year data […] Read more »

[qi:gigaom_icon_WiMax] Sprint continued to move ahead with its WiMAX rollout, flipping the switch in Chicago, three markets in Texas (Dallas/Fort Worth, San Antonio and Austin), and several in North Carolina. The move is in line with Sprint’s previously announced 4G rollout plans with Clearwire and Comcast […] Read more »

As lovely as the Pre is, it’s no iPhone, as Sprint’s third-quarter loss and the departure of 545,000 total subscribers proves. The nation’s third-largest wireless carrier, despite having an exclusive on the Pre, saw an exodus of 801,000 contract-holding customers in the latest three-month period, but […] Read more »

[qi:061] So far this week, more than 15 organizations have filed their comments addressing the Federal Communications Commission inquiry about competition and innovation in the wireless industry, and they’re pretty much what one would expect. The major wireless carriers go to great lengths to tout their […] Read more »

Last year it was clear Netflix would play a big role in online video. Now, there isn’t any doubt. The DVD service, which weathered the economic storms better than just about every tech company this year, has proved it’s adapting to digital better than just about […] Read more »

If I were to bet on a device that would benefit most from wireless access, it wouldn’t be a digital book reader, not in a nation where roughly half the people don’t read novels. A personal navigation device, an MP3 player on which one can download songs, even a handheld gaming unit all seem to be more popular with consumers — and offer better opportunities to show off wireless access. So why the focus on e-readers? Read more »

FCC Chair Julius Genachowski delivered a speech this morning about the importance of net neutrality and an open internet. Stacey over at GigaOM has a great recap of the news, and you can read the full text of the speech here. As we are about to […] Read more »

Verizon Added 300,000 New New FiOS TV Subs in Q2; telco now has 2.5 million subscribers to its TV service. (GigaOM) No wonder the company’s CEO, Ivan Seidenberg, said at an investor conference yesterday that “Video is going to be the core product in the fixed-line […] Read more »

“Comcast Plans to Bring TV Shows to Your Phone,” a Reuters story trumpeted yesterday, which had many of us here at GigaOM really excited — me especially, since this is exactly the sort of thing that I’ve said the cable guys should be doing if they […] Read more »

It was an emotional weekend for viral video moments. At tonight’s MTV Video Music Awards, Kanye West bolted on-stage during Taylor Swift’s acceptance of the VMA for Best Female Video to grab the microphone and proclaim that Beyonce “had one of the best videos of all […] Read more »

Clearwire has enough money to provide 4G wireless broadband service to 75 million people this year, and hopes to raise enough to boost that to 120 million by 2010. Clearwire CEO Bill Morrow tells The Seattle Times today that the $2.5 billion the company has allocated […] Read more »

[qi:___wimax] The future of WiMAX is pretty bleak in developed countries and as a result, equipment makers aren’t likely to sustain their investments in the space, according to a note out today by research firm Analysys Mason. The note calls out Cisco and Motorola specifically. Motorola […] Read more »

Virgin Mobile USA, which recently agreed to be acquired by Sprint for $483 million in stock, said today its sales for the second quarter were largely unchanged from the same period a year ago, at $290 million. However, its profits nearly quadrupled, to $21.8 million from […] Read more »

[qi:___wimax] If recent comments from a Comcast executive are any indication, the push that cable companies are making into the wireless space could help spark a price war for mobile broadband. Comcast in July launched two new service bundles that provide wired and wireless broadband in […] Read more »

[qi:083] The second-quarter results are in, and the big carriers continued to to rake in the bucks from data, with AT&T managing to win over the most new subscribers and the biggest spenders. Thanks, iPhone! But outside of the staid world of the larger carriers, as […] Read more »

MetroPCS, the prepaid cellular service provider, this morning reported a weaker profit and a drop in new subscribers for the second quarter, and analysts are blaming the increased competition among prepaid plans. The carrier, which has been reporting record quarters, only added about 206,000 subscribers in […] Read more »

Sprint this morning said its loss widened in the second quarter over the same period last year and that it lost even more subscribers this quarter than in the first three months of 2009. Those hoping that the Palm Pre, which hit store shelves at the […] Read more »

Sprint said today that it’s agreed to buy Virgin Mobile USA, a provider of prepaid cell phone service that runs on Sprint’s EVDO network, for $483 million in stock. With this deal, Sprint will get some 5.2 million prepaid customers, though its position as the No. […] Read more »

AT&T said today that it will provide wireless service for an eagerly anticipated e-reader from Plastic Logic, and that it’s inked an agreement with Jasper Wireless to provide 3G service to a variety of consumer devices such as cameras and navigation systems in cars. The two […] Read more »

Toshiba’s TG01 is the first Snapdragon phone, and even though it is based on Windows Mobile, the Japanese giant has put a nice, striped interface on the phone. Arne Hess of the::unwired shot a video that shows the entire interface in action. Toshiba has done a […] Read more »

Updated: Sprint today said it will turn over the day-to-day management of its wireless network to Ericsson, and spend between $4.5 billion and $5 billion over the next seven years for the service. The two companies will host a conference call later in the day to […] Read more »

If the Department of Justice wants to scrutinize the telecommunications industry, as The Wall Street Journal suggests it does, then it should get in line behind the new FCC, Congress and possibly the Federal Trade Commission. It also should focus on the much less sexy aspect […] Read more »

One of the big, new features of the iPhone is its ability to tether. BlackBerrys have had this ability for a while, so below I have outlined how to tether your BlackBerry with your Mac to use your Internet connection to browse the web with your […] Read more »

[qi:gigaom_icon_mobile] FCC acting chairman Michael Copps said yesterday afternoon that the agency would investigate exclusivity deals between carriers and handset makers, and “take action” if they were found to cause harm to consumers. While the largest cellular carriers are protesting the probe, consumer advocates are thrilled. […] Read more »

The iPhone  has sure brought a lot of whiners out of the woodwork. Today Sen. John Kerry joined them by publishing a blog post on the Save The Internet blog arguing against exclusivity of certain phones on some wireless networks. Yesterday, Kerry sent a letter to […] Read more »

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